


Chaos Theory

by arapaima



Series: put up with me and i'll make you see (that things are better when you're with me) [1]
Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Blow Jobs, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Homophobic Language, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, intimacy issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:00:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arapaima/pseuds/arapaima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know," Stanford says, rippling the silence that's settled like a heavy fog. "You kind of remind me of Chaos Theory."</p><p>You glance over at him, cocking your unibrow as you dab out your finished cigarette. "I mean," He continues, smoke thick on his breath. "You're wild, disorderly. You follow a nonlinear path and you always, <em>always</em> force me to try and predict the unpredictable."</p><p>Or: all of the times in which Rick and Ford meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chaos Theory

**Author's Note:**

> hey first thing's first: strong tw for drugs in this fic -- well, strong tw for like everything. there is (and will be) really graphic descriptions of doing hard drugs, extremely dubious consent, alcohol abuse, probably some physical violence like this fic is going to be a trainwreck so tread carefully. 
> 
> this fic is an au based in 1969 and onwards and it focuses on the 'what if' rick and ford went to harvard together, what kind of relationship would they have, what kind if dumb shit would they do together -- yadda yadda. i'm trying to keep as close as i can to canon here but it's hard so it's a weird mashup of like three different universes coming together as one.... please bear w me..
> 
> it's going to be 2-3 chapters long (give or take) with an epilogue, and it's also my first ever serious attempt at a fic so i guess let's see how it goes ?

The first time you meet him, you're twenty-five.

The sun is dripping just below the horizon, cream-black night sky melding with the last remaining hues of red and orange before slowly engulfing the colours overhead all together. You're drunk, or at least you will be, and the stars are spinning madly like a lost compass by the time you walk into your Advanced Complex Analysis class. 

The auditorium is huge; rib-white linoleum floors that squeak underfoot, dust-filled speakers that hang like gargoyles overhead, rows upon rows of coliseum-style seating -- none of it is impressing and the false daylight from the bright fluorescent beams above are already giving you a headache.  
With phantom steps you make a beeline for the stairs, carelessly shouldering the other students mulling about, and sit yourself in one of the farthest, least illuminated rows in the back. Throwing your bag on the chair next to you and kicking your feet up on the seat below, you create your own little isolated bubble -- dare you call it Ricktopia.

You watch with lidded interest as students gradually pool into the base of the classroom like survivors from a shipwreck, silently mocking how ridiculous some of them look from afar. It doesn't take long for your interest to dwindle and soon enough you're reaching into your coat pocket and pulling out your flask, tilting your head back and letting the whiskey flow with the motion down your throat as you close your eyes and resign to sleep through the class. 

The idle drawl of background chatter coupled with the alcohol crawling through your veins is enough to get you caught in a daydream about the blueprints for a quantum antimatter destabilizer you've been theorizing; the battery component to an infinite grid tapper you've been working on. You're metaphorically putting pen to paper, planning out its design before a voice cuts cleanly through your thought process, efficiently derailing the train straight off the fucking tracks.

"Can I sit here?" The voice is deep, masculine. It's thrumming and almost soothing, like the newscaster on the radio this morning announcing the latest casualties in the Vietnam War. You would probably find it kind of pleasant to listen to if you weren't immensely pissed off at the fact that it's disturbed you. But, you are pissed off, and it doesn't take a genius (albeit you are one) to figure out that it's directed you. 

You don't even bother to open your eyes when you deadpan a flat, "No." and proceed to go on with ignoring the minor disturbance, floating to the back of your mental sanctuary.  
It's the feeling of something rubbing against the hem of your pants that makes your eyes shoot open like startled mice, your brow knit with irritation from having been disturbed a second time. In front of you is a man -- presumably the exact same man who spoke before -- stepping over your extended legs and depositing himself in the seat right beside you (the one you were stupid enough to _not_ occupy with one of your material possessions, that cheeky bastard). 

You're glaring when you two lock eyes and, surprisingly, you notice that he's an inconceivably and unconventionally attractive guy -- for someone taking a doctorate course in mathematics. He's got these droopy puppy-dog eyes, as green as the Serpent from Eden, with a jawline that moulds his face into a smooth rectangular shape. Brown hair with a curl and thick glasses perched on a strong, aquiline nose, he parts his lips and you recoil at the thought of him speaking to you again. Instead, he just smiles with a row of slightly crooked teeth, pepper specks caught between the grooves; you've never trusted merchants that smile with all their teeth, but they way his eyes crinkle in the corners tells you that he's being genuine.  
When he extends his hand to you, you only stare at it like its some foreign oddity -- absolutely out of goddamn this world. You don't take it, but you do notice that he has the only case of polydactyly you've ever seen on a human (which is probably more fascinating than the actual person said extra fingers are attached to) and has more callouses woven into his olive skin than you would have initially given a Pretty Boy like him credit for.

"Stanford Pines," He tells you as if you actually care who he his. The simple introduction is about as euphoric to listen to as rubbing your ear against a cheese grater and you quickly decide that there just aren't enough fucks in you to deal with someone like him right now. Seriously. Your body could be pulverized into a juice, and then that juice could be strained and separated until every last metaphorical fuck remaining in your fleshy sludge of a corpse was squeezed out into a glass, and even then you wouldn't even have an ounce of fucks to give to this man. So instead you offer your most gentlemanly greeting in return by flipping him off, before closing your eyes and reaching back into your coat to retrieve your flask.

He doesn't make a peep after that and saying you're grateful would be the understatement of the century. The rest of class is spent alternating between listening to the furious sounds of pen scratching paper while your ignorant neighbour, _Stanford_ , jots down notes, and drinking until the whiskey in your flask runs dry. An eternity later, when the professor finally finishes droning on, you're out in a flash -- hopping over a row of seats and weaving down the stairs before pushing past the doors and into the night sky.

___  
  


The second time you meet him, it's the exact same night in exactly the wrong place.

You're no stranger to the streets of Cambridge; you prowl them like a ghost, sweeping the alleyways and ducking past streetlights in the seedier parts of town. Nights like these are filled with the clinking of glasses, the stickiness of a bar counter, the idle buzz of tavern chatter. 

You're on the other side of town tonight (an area that you're not known to frequent), meddling with the local bar scene as you do shots with pretty girls and gamble with some of the regulars. You've procured a pack of cigarettes from your most recent win and one dangles haphazardly on your alcohol-dipped lips as you stumble out of the bar and onto the crumbling sidewalk.  
The lighter you swiped from a hammered bar-goer with his head turned is a piece of plastic shit and refuses to work. Reason suggests that it's probably out of lighter fluid, but Reason can go fuck himself because you don't have time for his shit right now. 

You're muttering about "Th-the - this fucking American Made _bullshit_ ," on your umpteenth unsuccessful attempt when a brilliant flame erupts in the corner of your vision. It's swaying as seductively as a burlesque dancer and you gratefully lean into its light, ignoring the way the ends of your hair burn when you get too close and enjoying the feeling of the cigarette finally sizzling to life. 

You take a sharp drag, eyes finally focusing on six fingers (you have to count them twice to make sure you're not _that_ drunk) clasped around the lighter as smoke seeps into your lungs.  
"Oh, it's _you_ again." You wheeze out with a puff of smoke as brown eyes lock with green. He looks a lot more sheepish compared to when you last saw him -- what, four hours ago? He's huddle underneath a thick jacket, a stark contrast to your stain-covered sleeveless shirt, although the cigarette hanging loosely in his grip parallels your own. 

"Funny seeing you here." He says with that same molasses voice, crooked teeth peeking past his lips with every word. _Fucking hilarious_ , you think, rolling your eyes. You press your back against the brick siding of the bar, steadying yourself as you suck on your cigarette and a wave of silence passes over the two of you. You don't know why he's still standing around like a lost puppy; his job is done and you clearly aren't interested in conversation, but nonetheless he looks at you with those expectant eyes. You consider flipping him off again but you already know that he isn't the kind of man to fuck-off on cue; instead he clears his throat and tells you, "You know, I never got your name."

"Chl-Chla _my_ dia." You manage to burp-out, not missing a beat. 

This guy, God _this guy_ \-- he looks absolutely appalled. His eyebrows recede so far up so quickly at your reply that they look like two caterpillars glued to his forehead; his mouth hanging open like the words stuck in his throat are slowly asphyxiating him. 

"Excuse me?" He asks, eyes darting behind glasses as he tries to read you. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who can take a joke -- probably has some weird complex when it comes to not understanding something. You snicker at that, propping a leg up against the wall you're balancing on.

"That's my name," You scoff, taking another drag of your cigarette before blowing it into his face. "Yeah and my - my - my mom's Syphilis. Dad's Gonorrhea. Jeez Sixer, you-your - could you _be_ any less considerate?" 

"Sixer?" He asks, finishing off his own cigarette before crushing it underfoot. "Yeah," you say paralleling his actions not because you're done smoking but because you're sure as hell done talking to him. "You've got six fingers -- what, no one's ever made fun of you before? Y-you - you just go through every day of your goddamned life and no one ever talks about what a fuh-fuckin' _freak_ you are?" 

"You know," He begins and you think, for a second under the ghosting light of streetlamps, that you've gained the upper hand on him. That you've knocked him down a few pegs; hit a nerve. You get ready for his hissy fit, prepare yourself for a few exclamations on how he's perfectly normal -- maybe even hear a bit of his tragic backstory of being bullied as a child, but the tidal wave never comes. 

"One has to wonder if your outward aggressive demeanour has to do with you being self-conscious of your own appearance." He says calmly in the kind of pompous tone you only ever hear from egotistical scholars. It makes you think of the people in classes who say shit just to try and impress the professor. "Your unibrow for example." He continues, "Or that scruffy goatee on your chin. Or maybe you're just really bad in bed so you make-up for it with an equally as bad attitude." 

He's grinning now, crooked teeth on full display like he's won the goddamned lottery (but you still notice the way he shoves his hands into his pockets, hides them out of sight).  
_Boy jeez, he's really one-upped you this time Rick_ , you think, rolling your eyes so far back that you can practically see your brain cells die with every word that comes out of his mouth. Nonetheless he's got his eyebrows knit together and that stupid sleazy smile still plastered all over his face. He almost looks feral, like a lion getting ready to take down its kill with poor assumptions and an overly confident attitude.

You can spot a challenge when you see one and you know he's not only trying to one-up you, he's trying to make _you_ , Rick-fucking- _Sanchez_ , look like an idiot. You'd love to hook him right in jaw, wipe that expression off of his Pretty Boy face and knock out a few of those fucking teeth in the process. That'll really show him. But, on the other hand you know that violence won't really prove your point and instead make you look like an animal (and not of the party-kind).  
So, you laugh, push yourself from the wall and stumble into his personal space before looking up at him with a wicked glint in your eyes. The moths circling the light above are erratic as they dance like wayward strangers with one another, fueled by the tension between the two of you. They cast blurred shadows on the ground, on your face, your arms, and you can feel Stanford's breath on your cheek as you show your teeth.

"It's a good thing you're not a psychology student because you're a- a real fuckin' idiot if you think _that's_ what's wrong with me." You tell him, leaning-in impossibly close, challenging him back. 

"Well I do have a Ph.D in psychology," He counters as if that'll even impress you, standing his ground. Puffing his chest out. "In fact, I'm working on my third Ph.D at age twenty in _Harvard University_. Do you really think I'm that stupid?" 

"Y- _yeah_ , I do. I-I-I think you're a fucking idiot for assuming a few shiny degrees will somehow prove your intelligence." You punctuate the last word with air quotations, "I mean, wake up, Poindexter! Look around you! Th-the universe is - it-its so vast and chaotic! I mean why care about anything in this world when there's so much happening outside of it." You can feel your temper rising as the alcohol pushes you to waste your breath on someone you'd barely bat an eyelash at sober. You feel something crawling under your skin and you quickly realize that there's _a lot_ about this kid that you don't like. "A few pieces of paper from-from a - from a fucking _university_ doesn't make you anymore meaningful in endless nothingness. You're still nothing but-but a fraction of a grain of sand -- a literal nobody -- so why don't you get your head out of your ass. Stop being a sheep to the system and look at the bigger picture." 

You stare at him a little longer and it irks you that he has a few good inches on you in height, but you're tired of talking to him and you can feel the pinpricks of sobriety begin to climb into your hazy mind like the wretched demon it is. 

Stanford's face is bursting with an immaculate display of colour even under the fading light of the streetlamps and it takes the rest of your dwindling self control to not laugh at him. You never back down from a challenge and boy does it feel good when you win the game.  
When he doesn't say anything else, just looks at you with furious eyes, you turn away and head back towards the bar door with uneven steps.  
Of course, you flip him off at the doorway as a parting goodbye and mutter, "Thanks for the light, Sixer.", before marching straight inside without even a second glance.

(That night, you do a few more shots and bring a girl back to your apartment. She's got curly brown hair and a snaggletooth with a laugh that doesn't quite reach your standard of annoying, but something about her still rubs you the wrong way and you can't place your finger on it.

You fuck her so hard that your neighbors end up pounding on the walls, yelling at the two of you to quiet down until the sun begins to creep above the horizon.  
Afterwards you fall asleep, post-coital, to the feeling of unsettling pride easing into your bones.)

___  
  


You don't see Stanford for awhile after that. He becomes a ghost of a memory, clouded and distorted by the taste of whiskey and the smell of tobacco. Scraped knuckles and endless city lights. 

By the time December creeps around the corner, the sunshine and storms have long passed and biting frost bleeds into sunless days. You spend most of your free time huddled under a heavy jacket suckling on cigarettes or hidden away in someone else's bed. The cold has always sedated you like that; slowed you down like an anesthetist until your itch to go out, to do something, to cause some havoc overcomes you. You actually wonder if it's seasonal depression that makes the winter months hang over your head like a guillotine -- forces you to recede a little too far back in your own world and tinker with gadgets instead of get into bar fights (of course, you still do the latter but with considerably less vigor than before). 

It isn't until the first week of this godforsaken month that you get a letter in the mail threatening to renounce your scholarship if you don't pass your courses. You haven't gone to almost any of your classes since getting accepted into Harvard, so it's no surprise that they're finally calling you out on your bad behaviour (albeit you would have assumed that you were getting kicked-out for dealing drugs to some of the students, instead of not attending lectures).  
You crumple up the paper without a second thought, tossing the ball into your already overflowing garbage can as you get back to working on a circuit board you found in the trash.

Structured education is a fucking joke -- you could probably write an entire dissertation on how it just trains the ignorant and stupid to push buttons like monkeys and bleat like sheep. You never thought you'd even want anything to do with it, and you sure as hell didn't care if you got expelled from of some "prestigious university" by bourgeois pigs. 

That is, until one day at the local campus bar you realized you liked the atmosphere you were surrounded in too much to let it go just yet. You usually built a tolerance towards these things; the moment the allure of whatever lifestyle you were pursing lost its spark, you would skip town without a second thought. But, lately, you've been happy here. That spark isn't gone yet and you like all of the frat parties with free drinks and plenty of drugs, so you figured you could milk this cash cow and all the board members who jack-off to your GPA for just a little while longer.

And so, like clockwork, for the next week you waste half of your time weaving in and out of classes, writing one exam after the other. They're all mathematics courses so it's not like you had much theory you needed to prepare for, but like the Good Student you are you write them half sober and only a little high. 

When you step into your Advanced Complex Analysis for only the second time in the entire semester, you find your randomly assigned seat, kick back, and wait for the professor to announce when to flip over the tests. On your left is a girl, hunched with greasy black hair tied into a loose bun and bags under her eyes so deep they look like the Mariana Trench. Her face is gothic and stationary, but she's frowning as she rearranges her array of pens and pencils that lay scattered on the desk like mirror shards on the ground. 

When your right-hand neighbour presses into the seat next to you, you languidly flick your eyes over to them and suddenly feel an odd lump form in your throat, as if you'd just swallowed a handful of fibreglass stuffing. 

_Oh_. 

There's Stanford; blotting out the buzzing fluorescent lights like a halo around his head. There's Stanford, as tall as a pillar with those same squared shoulders, that same square jaw. _There's Stanford_ , and something about seeing him again makes you feel uneasy.

You'd almost forgotten he's in this class with you -- the memory of him at the bar is hazy and distorted like a wet book, printed letters bleeding into nothing but black, blurry smudges. He looks worse-off than usual (a feat in itself, you decide); eyes sunken in like potholes on pavement, worry lines scratched into his forehead, and a frown so monstrous you would have guessed he'd just murdered his entire family before coming here.  
You realize he hasn't even noticed you yet as he places his pens, his pencils, his university-issued calculator on the table. His eyes look hardened and you can practically see the gears rotating in his tiny little head as he likely tries to recall any forgotten material, muttering equations under his breath.

"Hey Sixer," You say in a hushed tone, coaxing him out of his reverie as he turns to you with a dumb face that quickly bleeds into a scowl. " _Funny seeing you here_." You're parroting his words from the bar though you doubt he'll notice the reference (it _has_ been almost three months). You're sure your tone just sounds condescending which, quite frankly, isn't too far from your goal. 

"What are _you_ doing here?" He hisses, hunching over the desk as he takes his seat, eyes darting to the professor at the front of the room. 

"Same as you," You shrug, raising your hands defensively. "Just an honest man trying to make an honest living."

" _Bullshit_." He spits and you snort, a lucrative smirk weaseling its way onto your face. 

"You're right," You concede, "I'm actually here to _ma-_ thematically prove I can kick your ass in a class that I never attended." 

That really gets him bristling like some angry alley cat and you wonder if you've found yourself a new hobby. 

Pushing Stanford's buttons until he's about burst -- well, pushing anyone's buttons if they rub you the wrong way -- is honestly an art form that you've perfected. Of course, that's nothing new; you've always been like that. Walking people to where the sidewalk ends, letting them look over the edge, and seeing if they'll teeter off the crumbling pavement (hell, you'll even push them off if you're itching for a fight). There's nothing particularly malicious about it in your opinion, you've always been one to test others. See how far they go, how much they can take. That's just how you are.  
If you can't get a fix out of kicking yourself, you like to do it to others. 

"You don't even have a calculator." Stanford points out with a flick of his chin. "And I doubt you've even studied. Do you really expect to one-up me?"

"I sure as hell do, and I bet I can even finish before you on top of it all." 

"Is that a challenge?"

"You're damn straight it is." 

By the time the rest of the students tumble into class and the invigilator declares start of the exam, your world is suddenly enshrouded with the sounds of pen scarring paper and calculator clicks.  
You finish the exam as soon as the one hour mark is declared, and you make eye contact with Stanford as you get out of your seat, mouthing an _I told you so_ to him with a wink before skipping out of the class, feet as light as air.

___  
  


Every other Friday night has always been gig night. It's the only definite thing in your schedule, and that fact alone is enough to irk you, but you like playing with your band and you love hearing people scream your name so you suppose you have to make the sacrifice for the greater good. 

You're at Galactica tonight, a bar with blood black walls and vomit scented floors. The snow is howling outside, knocking on the doors like some tax collector, but you're safely tucked away backstage as you tune your guitar with a cigarette curled around your lips. On the other end of the curtained room is one of your band mates, Samuel from your Number Theory class, twirling his drumsticks as he talks with someone at the door. You're not paying any mind to him, far too focused on the feeling of your guitar strings reverberating in the palm of your hand as you pluck at the hairs like fruit from a tree. You don't notice his conversation ending, but when he gets into your line of sight you drag your eyes up his small stature and focus on a tiny bag he's holding in the smokey light. 

"Hey Rick," He says with a rotten-toothed grin, "Look what I scored." 

"Samuel you _beautiful motherfucker_." You practically yell, an eager smile splitting your face in two. The band isn't set to play for a few more minutes so you suppose now is the best time out of any to whip out the drugs.  
You unhook yourself from the shoulder strap and gently prop your guitar against an amp before moving to clear a table covered in beer bottles that dot the surface like freckles on skin. You toss your cigarette in the ashtray as Samuel empties the white powder on the surface, covering it with a bill as he uses a lighter to smooth out some of the bigger chunks. You're already pretty drunk so blow just feel like the logical thing to turn to before the big show. 

Samuel arranges the glimmering dust into about a dozen lines before he presses his nose to the wood and snorts. He does it a few more times, only pulling back when three lines have disappeared up his nasal cavity. You laugh because his face is covered in coke, but you've always liked the kid. He knows how to party.

When it's your turn you tear off a corner of paper from one of your band's fliers, roll it up, and follow the trail of cocaine like hiker in the woods. The gasoline hits your throat, hard and fast like an explosion. You can already feel your face going numb, the tingling sensation moving from your nose to your eyes to the back of your head and you quickly realize that _this is really bad blow_. 

Of course that doesn't stop you from doing a few more lines before you pull up and shake your head like a Polaroid picture. You and Samuel are grinning at each other like a couple of dumb kids and you notice his pupils are already blown wide. You take a swig of beer from one of the bottles that was pushed aside to get the taste of shitty cocaine out of your mouth before grabbing your guitar and fastening it over your shoulder. 

"Let's go blow the fucking top off of this place!" Samuel hollers as he grabs his drum sticks and follows at your heels, the both of you marching past the curtains and out on stage.

Your other band mate, Ben P., is already on the platform, muttering something to a girl that's _definitely_ way too young to be holding a beer. You don't actually know Ben very well -- he's just some thirty-five year old you met at a party once who was dealing drugs, but he sings like the devil and shows up to practice so that's all you ever need. He whispers something to the girl who giggles a little with a hand covering her lips before he stands and heads toward the microphone. The voices carrying on in the background simmer down to a hushed tone as soon as all three of you enter on stage. Ben clears his throat, presses his mouth to the woven surface of the mic, and yells: " _We are the Flesh Curtains!_ "

The lights immediately dim until nothing but a spotlight shines on you and your band, the crowd pooling at your feet. You swing your arm down and strum the first note, the cocaine in your system speeding through you, and the three of you begin to play. 

It's a rush up on the stage, in the limelight. It's a feeling not even hard drugs can give you (although hard drugs _do_ help) when people scream and yell, shake until they drop. You can feel the notes climbing through your skin, pounding in your ears. You feel dizzy but in the best possible way as you whip your head from side to side and dance along the stage like a goddamn hurricane. People are grabbing at your feet like beggars in the morning and you close your eyes as you scream into the microphone with Ben, your twin voices loud enough to make the speakers stutter. 

Your fingers feel like they're bleeding and you howl like a werewolf, only to pull back and focus your energy on a guitar solo. When you open your eyes, still strumming your electric guitar, your blurred vision lands on a pair of glasses in the sea of bodies before you. Specifically, your vision lands on the _face_ those glasses are perched on and you realize that it's Stanford who's staring back at you. His eyes are wide and you nearly lose your rhythm, fingers stuttering over the strings when you realize it's him.

You spend the next five songs maintaining a strict eye contact with the guy until it's finally time to call it quits and play the last set. When the final notes flit out of the speakers and the crowd hollers and claps, the three of you exit back stage with stupid grins plastered all over your faces. You're crashing from your high hard as you put your guitar away and sit in a chair, leaning back and rubbing your eyelids as the last of the drug vacates your system with a bite. 

Your head is hammering and your ears are ringing from the loud music when a bouncer peaks his head through the curtain and says, "Rick, there's a guy out here who wants to see you." 

"Tell him to fu- _uh_ ck-off." You all but bark, grabbing a beer bottle from the table and slugging back the flat yeast. The taste is putrid as it drags itself along your tongue like some old hound about to be put down, but thank _God_ it helps ease the rest of the cocaine dwelling your body.

"I did but he's not leaving."

You sigh. "Yeah, let him in." (You almost laugh at how authoritative you sound. _Jeez Prince Rick, get off your fucking high-horse._ )

You close your eyes for a few seconds and open them to find yourself staring at nothing but a map of pipes and wires hanging on the blackened ceiling -- it's all interwoven and interlocked yet precariously hung and probably filled with Asbestos, but it's nice to focus your eyesight on something while your head pounds like two shoes in a drier. When a shadow enters your vision, you sit up, take another mouthful of beer, blink once, twice, thrice, and see Stanford sheepishly standing in front of you. You're not exactly surprised to see him seeing considering the two of you were practically eye-fucking each other throughout the entire gig, but you still offer him something akin to a smile. 

He looks uncomfortable -- well, truth be told, he always looks uncomfortable -- huddled under a black turtle neck and a floor-length trench coat despite the bar being monstrously hot. You kind of feel bad for the guy considering you're slicked with sweat and quickly overheating, even though the shirt your wearing isn't necessarily a _shirt_ , but a sleeveless piece of cloth with a collar that plunges down to past your stomach.

" _Sixer_. How was the show?" 

"Uhm," He says, scratching the back of his neck as he moves his weight from one foot to the other. "It was good. Loud." 

"Yeah no _shit_ ," You laugh but the sound of your own voice just makes your head pound harder. "T-this is- we are, y'know, a rock band." 

"I actually like rock." He admits, "But I came because I saw you on one of the posters." He pulls a crumpled flier out of his pocket with you and your band printed on the front, and shows it to you like some keepsake (as if you haven't seen it before). "Your name is Rick." He states dumbly, pointing at your picture with your name scrawled underneath. It takes a few seconds for you to piece together why he's telling you this information but when you do the snicker on your face grows even bigger.

" _Oh shit!_ " You bark as you toss your head back in laughter. "Oh shit, that - that's right! I never even told you my fucking _name_." 

Stanford frowns at you, and you can't decide if it's because he's upset you've never told him or because you find that fact _so fucking funny_. "Rick Sanchez." He says, folding the paper and putting it back in his pocket. "Is that... Hispanic?" 

"None of your fucking business." You bite, head still thrown back as dizziness and the tail-end of your headache overcomes you. He doesn't say another word and so you sit up, look him in the eye and say: "H-hey, you ever tried blow?" 

"No?" He answers, clearly confused as he cocks his head, eyes darting around until land on the remaining white streaks scattered along the table next to you. "I- oh. Uhm." He glances around the room again as if waiting for a police officer to jump from the shadows like Bela Lugosi. "I don't know if I should, I mean I've obviously read about it but isn't it..." 

"Addictive?" You say and he nods. "Only if you're a fucking idiot with it." You hook your foot on the leg of a nearby chair and drag it closer to you, motioning for him to sit down as you straighten out the lines. 

"Just -- here." You pass him a newly ripped piece of paper from the same poster you had mauled before the show and he sits down, thighs touching yours. "Roll this _uh_ -up, cover one of your nostrils and just snort." You instruct, eyeing the guy as he follows your words of wisdom. You hear the tell-tale sniffing sounds you've come to love and Stanford throws his head back, staring at you with eyes as big as saucers. 

"My face is going numb." He states in a slightly panicked tone. "And this tastes like _shit_." 

"Yeah," You agree, reaching under the table to grab two lukewarm beers. You press the lip of the bottle to the table's edge before slamming your hand down on the cap, effectively dislodging it as it flies off into the darkness and lands somewhere on the floor. You pass the beer to him, reroll your own make-shift straw, and do two lines with ease. "This coke is actually really bad," You shrug in admittance, opening your own beer and downing half of it in one go. "Still ge- _ets_ you high though."

Orthogonal to Stanford, you prop your legs up on his lap and lean back while you wait for the drug to reenter your system like a space shuttle in orbit. Of course the best way to get over a cocaine-hangover has always been to do more cocaine. You can't believe you didn't think of that before.

"You wanna do i-it?" You ask him, taking a lazy swig of your drink.

"Excuse me?" He says, dumbfounded with the rim of his bottle pressed against his shell-pink lips.

"Th-the last line of coke. You want it?" You reiterate, side-eyeing him suspiciously.

"Oh." He swallows. "Yeah."

He ducks down and then back up in record time, shaking his head like some wild horse, and you run your hand along the table's graffitied surface, collecting any remaining drug residue on your finger before licking it off.

"Hey Rick," He says after a moment of silence. You glance over at him and see his pupils are the size of the moon, but he's got an easy smile and that makes you grin right back. You kind of like the way your name bounces off of his tongue, so you nod as a prompt to continue. "Are you not going to hang out at the bar with everyone else?" 

"Nah," You tell him, glancing around and realizing that that's probably where Ben and Samuel are. "I-I mean - sometimes a homie's just gotta chill, y'know? I don't think I c- _ould_ deal with so many people around me right now anyways. But hey," You hum, sliding your legs off of his lap as you stand and walk over to your guitar case, swaying your hips with each step. "Check this out."

The coke has finally slugged back through your veins and you're itching to strum a few cords. You pull the electric guitar out of its casket and plug it into a small amp, turn up the volume just loud enough to block out whatever shitty record the bar is playing, and begin to pluck the strings. 

Stanford looks absolutely _ecstatic_. 

His face brightens up like the sun and he stands from his chair, the drugs clearly working on him as well as he starts to dance to the melody you've created. You want to laugh because _holy shit he's so fucking bad_ , but at the same time you find yourself joining in, grinning like a madman. He's got absolutely no rhythm; shaking anything from his elbows to his knees but God if he isn't trying his best. His head is nodding back and forth, swishing his hair from side to side as it covers his eyes, and you can see the crux of a grin creeping past his lips as he bring his shoulders into the equation. 

You speed up the beat, fingers moving as quick as a wink and you bounce on your heels, slowly inching closer to Stanford like two ends of a magnet. When he notices what you're doing he get's closer too, forgoing his terrible dance moves to air-guitar with you. He throws his head back in laughter, twiddling his fingers around his guitar's imaginary neck and you can tell that he's _really_ enjoying himself.  
The two of you stay like that for a while, knees bent, breaths touching, feeding off of each other. You're like waves from the ocean, crashing and receding, positive and negative. Again and again and again.

You feel like a ship to wreck around this boy. There's something about him that's contagious; some kind of energy that moves from you to him and back again. You were torn between hating him and needing to prove something to him when the two of you first met but now, well, you don't know how you feel about him. He's dug under your skin like some parasite, making a home out of your rotting body. He's an itch that you don't know how to scratch and it kind of makes you want to throw up (granted, that might just be the alcohol and drug cocktail you've been ingesting all night).

When the cocaine finally dries out of both of your systems and the beats from your guitar hiccup to a halt, the two of you sit back down at the table, panting like dogs.

"Jesus," Stanford mutters, sweat curling off his forehead as you pass him another beer.  
"Yeah." You agree, every ounce of energy in your body drained from your impromptu rock session. "You never told me how much of a headache this shit gives you." He mutters, fishing for a cigarette in his coat pocket to which you promptly light for him.

"Yeah." You repeat, lacking enough brain cells at the moment to come up with anything more intelligent. He passes you a cigarette of your own and you watch your twin smoke streams intermingle and rise into the dying backstage lights. The silence soon washes over the both of your fluttering heartbeats, baptizing the two of you until nothing but the white noise of tavern talk that leaks in backstage. It's not uncomfortable, sitting with Stanford with nothing but cigarettes and warm beer to keep the two of you company. On the contrary, you think that this sudden laziness was something that you desperately needed. You're always going, going, going. You never give yourself enough time to just sit back, to calm down. 

"You know," Stanford says, rippling the silence that's settled like a heavy fog. "You kind of remind me of Chaos Theory." 

You glance over at him, cocking your unibrow as you dab out your finished cigarette. "I mean," He continues, smoke thick on his breath. "You're wild, disorderly. You follow a nonlinear path and you always, _always_ force me to try and predict the unpredictable."

"Oh yeah?" You say and he hums, not missing a beat. "How's this for unpredictable." 

You stand, tower over him like an omen so your legs are on either side of his thighs, lean down, and kiss him. You kiss him slack-jawed and malleable, bony fingers creeping up to rest on his strong jawline and, _oh_ , it feels like they just _belong_ there. You feel like you're home, breathing in his smell, feeling the brazen shave of his sideburns, running your hands along the stubble on his jaw. He fits perfectly in your palms, pieces of a puzzle coming together as a whole. You can feel his breath, hot against your face as his nose bumps against your cheek. Your eyes slip shut as you move your fingers upwards and run them along his cheekbone.

You stay like that for a few more seconds before pulling back and looking at Stanford in the eyes. His face is red from his nose to his ears but confusion shines bright in his eyes, as if he hasn't quite understood what you've done. As if he's trying to figure out if you're still playing a game with him. 

"Oh." He says after a few unsteady breaths. "That was certainly... Unpredictable." 

You study him for a little longer; he's a bug under your microscope and he swallows once, twice, his Adam's Apple bobbing. Silence settles over the two of you again but an uncomfortable buzz suddenly hangs in the air, tainting the former calmness like ink in water. "I'm-" He starts, swallows again and fiddles with the rim of his glasses.  
"I'm not a fag, you know." He tells you, but his voice is uneven and his eyebrows are pulled together. He seems very, very confused about the whole situation and you have to bite back your laughter because you don't feel like getting punched in the eye tonight. 

"I know." You say, still standing, your hands resting uneasily at your sides as if they miss where they belong. "I-I-I'm not some _faggot_ either." You laugh. "I'm just following Chaos Theory, like you said. I'm being unpr _ee-_ dictable."

"Oh." He says again, still staring at you. The blush on his face hasn't faded and you wonder if it's just the alcohol that's making him look that way, that's making him fidget. 

"Anyways," You say, turning around and grabbing your coat that sat discarded on top of some of the rotting boxes pushed against the wall. "It's been a fun night. L-let's do it again sometime, Sixer."  
You slip your arms through the sleeves, not even bothering to zip-up the leather as you grab your guitar case and march to where the red exit sign hangs above the fire escape. You can hear Stanford calling your name as you push open the door, but he's silenced as soon as it slams shut on its hinges. 

The snow outside whips at you with enough brute force to make you stagger, chastising you for your actions. Your shoes crunch on the frostbitten pavement as you walk home, a heavy feeling settling in your stomach. 

(It's probably just the season depression.)

___  
  


On New Years Ben. P announces that the Flesh Curtains have a gig at some guy's house party that he deals to on a regular basis. You almost decline the proposition because you sure as hell have better things to be doing for New Years instead of playing guitar for some rich kid. That is, until Ben mentions offhand that the band has free reign of the house and is welcome to stay afterwards and drink themselves to death with expensive liquor and real champagne.  
Now _that_ is a tempting offer so you politely agree to play on the condition that no one cuts off your booze supply for the night and that Ben makes sure your guitar gets home safe while you get shit-faced.

When the three of you show-up to the house, amps and instruments perched on the front step, you feel a nervous laugh blossom from the pit of your throat.  
The place is _huge_ \-- more than a mansion than anything -- donned with bleached bone walls that nearly touch the clouds and Renaissance-style lighting that hangs over your head like a cross. You can even spot a few Romeo-and-Juliet-esque balconies growing off of the siding like cancerous tumours, and dead ivy still clings to the frame of the home even in this sub-zero weather.

It's not necessarily the size of the monstrous palace that's giving you cold feet, but rather you'd prefer to have approximately eight root canals and three toe nails pulled instead of play your music for the bourgeois pig that owns the place. But, here you are and you can practically hear the wax-stamped bottles of overpriced liquor calling your name. You decide to fold, pushing open the engraved oak door and stepping inside the heated foyer with Ben and Samuel close behind you. 

It doesn't take long for the band to set-up and play a few songs, but something about the atmosphere of this place still makes you scowl. Sure the people enjoy your music (hell, it's 1969, Rock is the language of your generation), but there's something about the way the crowd is holding crystal glasses instead of red cups -- bobbing their heads instead of thrashing them -- that bugs you more than you'd care to admit. You don't get to dwell on the feeling for too long because after your fourth song the three of you are immediately ushered offstage and the next band in the lineup begins to play.

Packing up your guitar and leaving it pressed securely against the rest of the gear, you and Samuel make a beeline for the refreshments table while Ben leaves to go chat with the host.  
The alcohol is arranged in rows of graveyard stones, clean bottles pressed against one another with golden, burgundy, even crystal clear liquid lounging tantalizingly inside an array of glasses. Samuel doesn't miss a beat, putting three unopened bottles of rum in his bag and waving goodbye to you as he absconds with at least two-hundred dollars worth of high class liquor slung over his shoulder. He leaves you, standing alone in a sea of faces you don't recognize at a home you don't know, and you suddenly feel a little more bitter inside.

You briefly consider following his actions and doing the same, but Reason shows his ugly mug again and reminds you that the night is still young and you can raid the booze supply when you get bored and leave to find a less diluted New Years party to crash.

Your fingers ghost over the alcohol selection, landing on a specific bottle of whiskey you've been eying at the liquor store for a while now but could never afford. Withdrawing it from the selection you pop the corked cap, taking a nice long gulp and enjoying the musky flavour as it slithers down your throat. A few local party-goers eye you with disgust but you ignore them, taking the full bottle as you proceed to mull around the multistory home, gliding your fingers along polished wood surfaces. 

You climb up the first set of coiling stairs and peek your head through each room, taking mouthfuls of finely aged booze here and there as the sound of Rock 'n Roll gradually begins to fade into the distance. 

Most of the guests on the floor are huddled together like flocks of pigeons, chirping about the latest events in the Vietnam War or how they think Nixon will do in office. It takes all of your self control to not slam your head against the wall and you're quickly realizing that it might have been a mistake to stick around.  
Sure, everyone here is probably a student just like you but they're so goddamned _pompous_ \-- you're surprised they can't see their own duodenum considering how far their heads are up their asses.  
Their elegance and properness leave a bad taste in your mouth that not even good whiskey can wash away, and it even irks you that most of the people here are far beyond tipsy yet none of them are smashing bottles or starting fights. 

Stanford's words echo faintly in the back of your mind at that thought and you realize what he said about you was completely true. You _do_ crave entropy. Disorder. _Chaos_.  
You embody it in your own actions, your choices, your lifestyle, and when things deviate into a path of normalcy and tranquility (like now) you find you just don't know what to do with yourself. 

(You frown at that because maybe that fucker _did_ deserve his Doctorate in Psychology.)

You skip up a few more floors, poking your head in here and there and touching the various priceless ornaments that line the hallways. One of said ornaments is a vase of flowers made entirely out of blown glass; an immaculate display of a spectrum of colours, ranging from maroon to Prussia blue as they curl up the fragile stems before bleeding into the petals and leaves. You graze your hand along one of them and a piece snaps-off at your fingertips, promptly falling and shattering on the ground. You glance around to see if anyone had just witnessed your act of vandalism and leave the crime scene after realizing no one else is in the hallway but you.

You spend the rest of your time browsing the home (hands to yourself) and sloshing back the ever-so-expensive bottle of whiskey in your grip, lost in your own mind and the winding pathways of the house. This place kind of reminds you of the Paris Catacombs and you distantly wonder if you'll stumble upon the dead body of someone who'd gotten lost trying to find the bathroom. 

When you reach the top floor you notice it's nearly deserted except for a few voices drifting past closed doors. The sound of the other bands playing downstairs is nearly nonexistent now, save for the slight buzz of a guitar and clash of drums still managing to leak their way through the walls. You eventually find yourself at the end of a preposterously long hallway, facing a set of double doors that presumably lead outside and onto one of the many balconies adorned by the home. You pull one of the handles and step outside, taking another swig from your suddenly dwindling bottle of alcohol as you do so. There's snow drifting from the clouded night sky, soft flakes like downy feathers as they fall and settle onto the railing surrounding the small terrace. The air around you, however, is biting. Vicious. It tears at your skin like two wolves over rabbit's flesh and the urge to retreat back into the warm sanctity of the house is suddenly very alluring. 

Before you get the chance to go back, the smell of pot assaults your nose and you turn to see a figure slotted in the corner, leaning over the railing with a joint in their hand. They turn to the sound of the door clicking shut behind you and you're suddenly met face to face with a very high Stanford. You almost jump out of your skin when you see him, a century's worth of questions flooding your head as you stare at him with a flabbergasted look. His eyes are glazed-over and red as rosebuds, but he offers a lazy smile when he notices it's you. 

"Hey." He says, readjusting himself so his back is pressed against the banister. "What are you doing here?"

"I c- _ould_ ask you the same thing." You counter, feeling another wave of sub-zero air engulf your bones. You wipe the look of surprise off of your face as you twiddle with the rim of the bottle in your hand, trying to stitch together the situation. Put the puzzle pieces back in place. "You're one of the last people I thought I'd run into here." You admit, honesty a foreign feeling on your tongue. Your boots crunch on the snow laid out before you as you step away from the door and closer to Stanford.  
You almost want to absorb the heat radiating off of him and his ridiculous trench coat like some greedy little poikilotherm; warm your bones, your body, your blood, your breath. But something cements you in place; stops you from getting too close to him.

"Well," Stanford says, an easy grin sliding onto his loose face, tensing the slack muscles. "Then I guess you could say it's _funny seeing you here._ "  
It takes you a few seconds to realize what he's hinting at, but when you figure out he's pulling your leg you almost laugh. He's using that sentence like an inside joke between the two of you, a little secret that only you and him know. You can't tell if the familiarity is a welcomed gesture or if it makes your skin crawl, but it might just be the goosebumps on your arms that's making you squirm.

"I'm friends with the host, Fiddleford." He continues, ignoring your lack of reply as he takes another drag of the joint and exhales into the falling snow. "But, uhm, big parties like these get me nervous, so..." He trails off as he gestures to the drugs in his six-fingered grip. He's rambling a little bit. His speech is slowed, choppy and a little disjointed as he chews his words softly before letting them slip past his tongue. "What are you doing here?"

You shrug. "One of my bandmates -- he knows your friend I gu- _ess_. Wanted us to come play a few songs."

"Oh." 

"Yeah."

Silence settles over the two of you like the snowflakes in his hair and you can't quite decide how you feel about this whole situation. You wonder if you should leave. 

Leave him alone, leave this party, leave this house, leave this _city_.  
You can't tell if the allure of university life has lost its spark. You can't tell if there's anything left here that will keep your interest; if there's anything left here that will make you stay. You've been feeling on-edge since that night at Galactica and it drives you up the goddamn wall when you feel so uncertain about everything. 

"Hey," Stanford says, drawing you back to reality like a puppet on strings. He seems to be good at that; taking you out of your thoughts before you get caught inside the thistle and weeds, the brambles at the edges of your mind. He's good at grounding you even when his head is in the clouds and you almost admire how well his honey-thick voice can keep you contained in your own body.

"Do you want some?" He asks as he offers the half-smoked joint. You wonder if it's his way to start a conversation with you, to eat away at the veil of silence. You don't really think he consciously keeps you from getting lost in your thoughts. It's more of a side effect of his presence, like those little warnings they put on pill bottles.  
You take the smoldering paper from his grasp and say, "Trade you." as you offer your half-empty bottle in return. 

"You know you're supposed to leave the bottle there and just take a glass, right?" He says as you take a drag and feel a shiver course through your body. The smoke hits your lungs with the force of a train and you almost cough; you wonder if he mixed in some hash with the marijuana because you can already feel the drugs going to your head, smothering your thoughts in a fleecy blanket. "L-like - as if I give a shit." You tell him, exhaling the smoke as you take another drag and pass the joint back. 

The bottle of whiskey falls back into your grip and just like that the two of you reach a comfortable equilibrium, exchanging mood-altering substance for mood-altering substance until the joint is done and the bottle is empty. You run your hands along your chattering arms and Stanford suggests the two of you go inside. 

Closing the door behind you, he stomps his boots on the floor mat and gives you a Look when you trek snow inside and onto the clean carpeting. You feel like flipping him off, maybe even rolling your eyes at his disapproving stare but your body feels just too damn heavy, the weight of gravity feeling equivalent to Jupiter's.

It distantly occurs to you that you're really fucking high right now.

"Do you want to walk around for a little bit? I, uh, don't really think I'm ready to go back to the party." Stanford suggests as the two of you stand at the doorway, motions slowed, speeches slurred. You agree with a heavy nod of your head, politely discarding the empty bottle of whiskey by the balcony door as the two of you begin to stumble the hallway as stoned as Jesus.

You talk about anything and everything with him, subjects ranging from metaphysics to metaphilosophy, molecular chemistry and xenobiology. He matches your conversation with child-like excitement and even tells you a few smart jokes in between that leaves you cackling like one of Macbeth's Three Witches. (You particularly cared for a joke that began with, "So an absurdist walks into a Dada exhibit...").

He tells you about his fascination the strange, the abnormal; how he wants to explain the unexplainable with science and facts. You tell him about your interest in robotics, of deconstruction and reconstruction of the world around you. How you want to see and experience what else is out there in the universe (because you _know_ there's more out there in the void of space no matter what anyone says) instead of being stuck grovelling on a place like Earth.

You're surprised about how willing you are to talk about yourself with Stanford, how you're letting him read a few pages from the book of your life instead of keeping the cover locked shut. You're surprised about how intelligent some of his arguments are, how he can carry a conversation about the flaws in String Theory and debate the factualness of alternate universes. You're surprised about a lot of things with this boy, but you're absolutely _delighted_ when he suggests that the two of you steal a bottle of champagne each and maybe a few snacks from downstairs.  
He navigates the home as if he was a cartographer reading a map, turning left then right down the winding hallways until you reach the foot of the stairwell. 

After a century of staggering down the multitude of coiling staircases you and Stanford reach the ground floor. Nearly all of the partygoers are pooled in the massive foyer, tittering about with an assortment of alcohol in their hands and you notice most of them are considerably more intoxicated since you last saw them. You follow at Stanford's heels as he makes a beeline for the kitchen, ducking past a wave of people and sliding through an open doorway. 

You take the time to admire this broad back as you enter the room, your thoughts hazy and disjointed as you stare at the slope of his shoulders, the angles of his jawline. He leans over to open the fridge and you even take the time to stare at his immaculate ass as he pulls out two bottles of chilled champagne. You take one last glance and swipe a bowl of chips laid out on the marble countertop before the two of you exit, leaving no trace of your presence other than a trail of snack residue dusting the floorboards. You continue to follow him with languid steps, gorging yourself on the oily potato slices as he retreats back upstairs and down yet another corridor, stopping at the seventh door down and jiggling the handle.

The door swings open and reveals a sunken living room with precariously hung chandeliers and gothic curtains lining the walls. You glance around and your vision falls on the centerpiece of the room; a framed portrait of a clearly wealthy family spanning the entire northern wall with a mustachioed father standing proudly in the back of the painting, hands clasped around the shoulders of his wife and daughter. You walk closer to the image, hearing Stanford rummage around as he closes the door and fiddles with a few light switches to better illuminate the room. _The Northwests_ is engraved on a gold plate on the picture frame and you frown. 

"Hey Sixer," You say, taking a few steps back to scrutinize the portrait. A hum sounds from somewhere behind you as another light flickers on. "How do you - you - y'know, know the Julius Caesar that owns this place -- Fiddlefranz." 

"Fiddleford." Stanford corrects and you turn to see him sliding down on one of the sunken couches. "He's a friend of mine from university. A good guy. Smart guy." You leave the painting with a parting glance and sit down as well, depositing the chip bowl you've been cradling on the low table as you slide into the booth. "Don't let this swanky mansion fool you." He continues, digging his hand into the chips and sliding a bottle of champagne towards you. "He's actually a really humble guy. Just sold a lot of his patents -- made so much money he didn't know what to do with it so...? He bought this place? I guess the owners went bankrupt or something." 

You nod, fiddling with the rim of the bottle, tearing away the foil and untwisting the wires that hold the cork in place. "I actually stay here a lot." Stanford says, paralleling your actions. "I know this place like the back of my hand." 

You almost want to ask him _why_ but you quickly stop yourself, reasoning that you'd stay in a mansion over your moldy apartment any day. Instead you glance over at Stanford in time to watch him pop the cork off of the champagne bottle, frothy honeysuckle liquor overflowing and dribbling down the bottle's neck at the sudden decompression. You swallow as you watch Stanford slide his tongue along the glass surface, trying to catch any liquid before it falls on the couch cushions. You save the mental image for later. 

You pop your own bottle and the two of you cheers, tapping the glass rims together before drinking. Stanford sets his bottle next to the chip bowl after a few minutes of idle chatter and begins to rummage around in his pockets. You give him a questioning look but he just shakes his head, digging his hands deeper into the folds of his jacket. 

"You want to smoke another one?" He asks and you almost laugh because that exact same question was on the tip of your tongue. "Hell yeah." You agree, grinning as you take another sip of champagne. Truth be told you were coming down from your high -- having a wicked tolerance to well, everything, was a more of a curse than a blessing.

Stanford pulls an array of items from his pockets and places them on the table one by one; a pack of cigarettes, some filters, a slip of cigar paper, a zippo lighter, and a bag of weed that he rolls between his six fingers in a calculated movement before setting down. He stands a little and reaches to the far end of the table, procuring an ashtray that you're _positive_ is made from Swarovski crystals before sitting down with an " _Oof._ ". You help him pick apart the greenery, discarding stems and seeds in the ashtray before handing off your little pile of pot to him and lighting one of his cigarettes. 

He has the joint rolled and ready before you can even blink, licking the paper and tying off the ends before bringing it to chapped lips and lighting it. He exhales through his nostrils, coughing a little as an impressive plume of smoke erupts around his face, distorting his features. He takes a few good hits before passing it to you in exchange for the cigarette and as soon as the smoke hits your lungs your bones turn to honey. You slip down into the leather cushions, melting into the couch like a Dalí painting as you suckle on the spliff and watch the smoke evaporate into the air.  
You honestly wish you smoked more pot. Hard drugs have taken your hand in marriage, so it's hard to look back at your old relationship with marijuana but sometimes it's nice to sit back and have an affair with the devil's herb. 

You pass the joint back, take another sip of champagne, and shift a little closer to the heat radiating off of Stanford. He doesn't seem to mind, lifting his arm so it rests on the top of the couch and you tilt your head against it, leaning back and closing your eyes. The cigarette is back in your hands but you take your time with it, making love with the filter as the nicotine floods your system. 

"Hey Rick," Stanford says after a few minutes of comfortable silence. You hum, peeking at him from the corner of your lidded eyes as he taps the end of the joint on the ash tray. "What are you even doing in university?"

You sit up a little and eye him, trying to untangle the question. "I mean," He continues, putting the smoking green between your bony fingers in exchange for your cigarette and his bottle on the table. "You don't seem like the kind of guy who likes this kind of shit. You... Y'know. You're really smart (You snort. _Duh_.) but you don't seem like you care about school so I'm just, uh, wondering." 

"Yeah, that - that's a damn g- _ood_ question." You muse, twirling the paper in your grasp. "I mean I got a scholarship here because I'm, y'know, _really smart_ ," You say in a gruff voice, impersonating him and he laughs. "But I don't really know what I'm doing here." You admit after a second, eyes casting away from Stanford and up to the ceiling. You sigh out the smoke and lean back against his arm, taking another drag for good measure before resting the spliff on the ashtray and closing your eyes again. "I don't know what I'm doing at all." 

You can feel Stanford's frown digging into you like spurs on a horse, so you burp, blindly reach for your bottle, and slug back a few mouthfuls. "What about _you_ , Sixer. What brought you to this hellhole instead of - of - of I don't know, selling your shit like Fiddlefranz."

"Fiddleford." He corrects again and you smile. "And I'm here because I like to learn. Isn't that why most people go to university?" You think the question might be rhetorical, but you mentally reply with a _no_ anyways.  
"Besides, I like being so young and still smarter than almost everyone in my classes." He admits in an almost childish tone but you can hear the pride swelling in his words. You want to laugh at him for stroking his own ego but you hold back the snide comment in favour of listening. "I mean, I came from a real shitty household. My parents were -- _are_ pricks, and after my brother got kicked out I just applied for a bunch of scholarships and ended up in Harvard. I'm trying to get a grant to pursue a little project of mine -- maybe even hire a research team but... No such luck." You glance at him and he winks at you. "Yet." 

You snort, reaching for the half-finished cigarette in his hand. "I probably shouldn't even be telling you all this." He continues, rubbing his eyes from under his glasses before taking the joint from the ashtray. "I'm just high." He says through a mouthful of smoke. "Makes me run my mouth." 

"I can tell." You reply but your words are cut short by yelling downstairs. The two of you still, training your ears to the sound and you quickly realize that the party is counting down the last ten seconds until New Years. Stanford joins in the yelling at eight seconds, and you join in at six. When the countdown ends at one the two of you squeal " _Happy New Years!_ " at the top of your lungs, laughing like a couple of idiots for absolutely no reason at all.

You can't stop yourself from cackling, taking in wheezy little breaths until suddenly you're not laughing anymore and Stanford has his lips pressed against yours. You almost pull back, shock startling all five of your senses as you listen to the sound of people cheering and clapping downstairs.  
You feel him begin to break contact only a second later so you panic, dropping your cigarette in the general vicinity of the ashtray and digging your hands in his hair as if it was a life-raft from your sinking ship. You kiss him back with fervor, all teeth and tongue, saliva lining the edges. Your nose is knocking against his glasses but one of his hands settle on your waist, hugging you closer as he kisses you more, letting you in. You're grinning into his mouth when another hand settles on your cheek and you just _adore_ the feeling of all six of those fingers pressing into your skin. 

You pull back a little to readjust yourself, pecking his lips as you hook a leg over his thighs and straddle him. You don't know why you're acting this way -- why he's _letting_ you act this way, but hey, you wouldn't be Rick Sanchez if you didn't roll with the punches. 

You settle on his lap, knees digging into the cushions on either sides of his hips and kiss him more languidly. You were excited at first but now the pot is tapping your shoulder, reminding you how heavy your body feels, how slow your mind is acting. You pull back for air and Stanford's hand leaves your face to readjust his glasses. "Uhm," He says and you wonder if history is going to repeat itself. If he's going to shy away like he did at the bar. "A New Years kiss is good luck." He tells you, clearly flustered as he wiggles under your weight. You make an ugly face at him and lean back down, stifling any other words that might come out of his stupid mouth with your lips. You don't want to hear him talk right now. 

He tastes like weed and champagne, an odd combination that swirls around your tongue as you dig it into his mouth and pull at his hair. Your left hand glides down to his jawline and you pull back to say: "You'd look really good with a beard." 

He doesn't say anything, just closes his glassy bloodshot eyes and tilts his head like he's going to kiss you again and you snort, pulling away and deciding to follow the next obvious course of action. You slip down until you're underneath the table, head between his thighs and fingers inching towards his pants.

"Whoa." He says, startled eyes snapping open. "Whoa, whoa, hey, _Rick_." His hands find your hair and pulls, trying to deter you. "Rick, wait I'm not a fa-"

"Yeah, yeah." You interject, breath ghosting over the Eden between his legs. "I get it; you're not a fag Stanf- _ord_. You're preaching to the choir here, buddy." You unzip his fly, pop the button of his slacks, and he doesn't make another peep. His hands stop tearing at your scalp so you interpret it as a green light and continue, running a sweaty palm against the barrier of his underwear. You can feel him getting hard under your touch and you almost want to chastise him for how easily his body is responding to you. One of his hands leaves your tangled hair to rest over his eyes as he slouches on the couch, whispering an " _Oh my God_." under his breath. You want to laugh at what a drama queen he's being but you have better things to do, focussing your attention on massaging the bulge in his pants until it's straining against the hem of his boxers.

You try to glance up at his face to gauge his reaction but the table above your head is distorting your view and all you can see is the curve of his neck as he swallows. You trace the outline of his dick, feeling its warmth in your palm, its weight under your fingertips, and you finally work it out of the confines of Stanford's underwear. You waste little time, spitting in the palm of your hand and running it along the heated skin, jerking him a few times until his cock is standing proud, rubbing against your cheek. Dragging your tongue from the base of the shaft to the tip you continue to tug at him, covering every inch of his dick with you, you, _you_. Stanford sighs above you, his hand briefly tensing in your hair at the contact and you feel a snicker pull at your features. 

You keep at it, lost in a daze as you suck at his dick -- half drunk and mostly high as you tongue his slit and coat the sensitive organ in a sea of saliva. Eventually you bring your lips around him completely, hollowing your cheeks as you bob your head gracefully between his thigh. The position is a little uncomfortable and you can feel your knees gradually numb, your jaw beginning to ache, but you keep working on Stanford like a conductor orchestrating a symphony. You've done this before; you know a man's sweet spots, so it only makes sense that you're probably giving Stanford one of the best (if not only) blow jobs of his life despite being as high as a kite. You flatten your tongue as you drag it up the vein on the underside of his dick and he absolutely whines above you, encouraging you even more as his other hand leaves his eyes to grip at your head. His legs are tense and almost shaking as a desperate, "W-wait - _oh_ \- oh god--" stutters past his parted lips and you only go faster, head jerking at breakneck speed as you swallow repeatedly, convulsing your throat. He cries out again before his voice is forced into silence and he cums in your mouth, sloppiness coating your tongue, the back of your throat. 

His hands drop from your head as he pants and you slide up from your position under the table, not even bothering to put his cock back in his pants as you settle on his hips once again. His eyes have fluttered shut so you lean in, tilt your head, and kiss him. He accepts your lips graciously yet lazily, clearly tuckered-out as he lets you deepen the kiss with little restraint. As soon as his lips open you slip your tongue past his teeth and spit in his mouth, effectively transferring the cum you just sucked out of him back to its original owner.

He pushes you away (after swallowing, you note with a devilish smile) but you prepared for that, cackling as you shoot upwards and step over him. You climb off of the sunken couch and onto the sturdy hardwood flooring in time for Stanford to whip around and glare. "Rick!" He says, absolutely fuming. "You - ! You're disgusting!" 

You're still laughing, kneeling slightly as you grip your stomach and shake like a leaf. "I -- _you're disgusting_!" He repeats, clearly lost for words as you wipe a fake tear from your eye. 

"Gotta - gotta keep you on your toes, Sixer." You reply, still smiling as reach over and grab your champagne bottle from where it was. The cigarette you threw away earlier missed the ashtray and has now burnt a hole in the table, but you politely ignore that piece of information as you watch Stanford trying to put his dick back in his pants and zip-up the fly. You feel like you should say something purely out of courtesy, maybe even apologize for making him swallow his own cum, but instead you just stare at him a little longer before deciding to abscond without another word. You shut the door behind you, quick as lightning as you disappear down the endless hallway.

When you finally find your way downstairs you discover Ben P. in a room with a few other people, smoking from a hookah and drinking out of various bottles littered around the table. Someone passes you the next hit of shisha you resign to stay there for the remainder of the evening, smoking a little and drinking a lot until your thoughts are nothing but a primordial stew of unintelligible ideas and bad decisions. You even meet this Filddlefranz guy and realize he's not half bad (if not really fucking weird), and graciously accept his offer to do some tequila shots with him and the cute girls hanging off of his arms.

At some point Ben pulls an assortment of drugs out of his bag and it all goes downhill from there; your memory becoming nothing but a series of foggy flashbacks and blurred lines. 

You wake up at three o'clock in the afternoon wearing someone's bra with lipstick all over your face, call a cab home, and only realize as you stand at your apartment door fiddling with the keys that you never saw Stanford for the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> some extra notes: i noticed rick has more of a stutter when he's more intoxicated so i try to write ?? that in ??? so sorry if his speech pattern is super disjointed and hard to read lol  
> uhm, in case u havent guessed it, ben p. and samuel are supposed to be versions of bird person an squanchy ?? but like i said i want to keep as close to canon as i can with this au so bp and squanchy DO exist in this universe rick just obviously hasnt met them yet
> 
> also hmu @ http://throat-lozenge.tumblr.com and send me your rickford headcanons im thirsty. or just talk to me about the fic or send me prompts or just follow for any writing updates i mean hey you do you homie


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